Big Love

Speaking of Romney, I caught Big Love last night, HBO's new drama on a we-they're-swear-not-Morman polygamous family in Utah. I loved it, though others present were a bit less enthused. The mechanics, however, are
pretty obviously problematic. Chloe Sevigny's character is a bit too overtly atrocious -- shallow, manipulative, brittle, and demanding. In a traditional marriage between two partners committed to making it work, that might all fly, as the only alternative would be divorce, with all the associated costs and disincentives that implies. But in a polygamous arrangement where the husband has two other companions and all the financial leverage, Sevigny would be rapidly forgotten, marginalized, ignored.

In traditionally polygamous societies, I could envision certain belief systems that would brighten Sevigny's fate. If divorce is disallowed and it is the man's duty to give equal time to each wife no matter her awfulness, then so it goes. But given that Bill and Barb had already broken from the Church, that they see doctors, live in suburbia, and have apparently retained only minor elements of theism and a throwback marital arrangement in their otherwise modern existence, no rational actor, in Bill's place, would be ignoring his sexy, youngest wife or elegant first companion for the middle beast. Which is why, at base, polygamy actually wouldn't work today. If it stops being an economic arrangement and emerges as a method of hedging bets and guaranteeing choices, there'll simply be too many losers to keep any semblance of domestic tranquility.